“That’s it,” said Tragius wearily, looking down at the results of their handiwork.

     The worktable was covered with a jumble of powders, books, scrolls and items of alchemical equipment, gathered, used and abandoned there during the past few days as the wizards worked furiously, and the fruits of all that labour now lay on one end of the table that had been hurriedly cleared with a sweep of Adantus’s hand, spilling papers and various bits of metalware onto the floor.

     Fifteen globes of milky white glass stood there, each one shot through with streamers and filaments of silver. Each globe was an ark, identical in purpose and function, although differing slightly in design, to the one belonging to Malefactos which Tragius had stolen and used to blackmail him. They were designed to contain the soul of a wizard during his transformation into a rak, preventing it from being sucked away to the next world and the judgement of the Gods when the last of the life left his body.

     The immortal realms, the various paradises, hells and limbos, drew souls like iron filings to magnets, but the connection between a soul and its living body was far stronger. Easily strong enough to hold the soul in the mortal world. When the body died, though, that connection vanished, and the purpose of the ark was to replace it as the soul's anchor in the world of the living during the transformation. When the transformation was complete the rak's soul would return to its undead body, but the connection to its ark would remain and it would be sucked back to it if its body was destroyed, becoming a safe refuge until he created a new physical body for himself. Raks were virtually immortal, therefore, so long as their arks remained intact, but if they were destroyed the soul's last hold in the world of the living would be lost and it would be sucked off to judgement.

     Seeing them there, complete and ready to be used, brought home to Tragius for the first time exactly what they were contemplating, and for the first time he began to feel a slight twinge of doubt. What if Westin’s right? he thought with some trepidation. What if we all change into evil creatures the moment we make the transformation? We could be unleashing a plague upon the world worse than anything else in history!

     Then he remembered the war, though, and remembered that the plague was already loose. No matter how evil we may become, he told himself, we cannot become as great an evil as the Shadowhosts. Any risk, any sacrifice, is worthwhile if it stands even the smallest chance of defeating them. And I don’t believe I will become an evil creature! I do not! I am a good man, more or less, and I will remain so no matter what becomes of my physical body.

     Elmias watched his fellow wizard sympathetically, guessing what was going on in his mind from the expressions passing across his face. “What do we do now?” he asked.

     “Contact Resalintas,” said Tragius. “We let him know before we do anything else. In the meantime, cover this up. You don’t need me to tell you what could happen if the priests here find out about it.”

     Elmias nodded. “All our hard work.” He draped a large blanket across it, being careful not to upset any of the small glass phials. “We don’t want to have to start all over again at this late stage.”

     Tragius nodded in turn. News of the events in Bula Pass had reached them even down here in Crystalwade, and none of the inhabitants of the fortress monastery had any doubts that the war was approaching its final stages, one way or another.

     Tragius searched around to make sure there were no priests in the vicinity, then cast a Farspeaking spell. A moment later he was in magically enhanced telepathic contact with Resalintas. “We have completed our researches and preparations,” he said, being deliberately vague in case the enemy were monitoring the conversation. “We are ready to proceed.”

     “I am also ready to proceed,” replied the old priest, his voice uncharacteristically weak and shaky. “The time has come to gather together all the high ranking members of my order that remain in the world and tell them what we have in mind. Since you’re already there, the meeting might as well be at your location.”

     Tragius nodded, and the sophistication of the spell meant that the old priest was aware of even this visual communication. “How do you think they’ll take it?”

     "When I tell them what has transpired in Bula Pass, how Samnos has acted in support of my decision, they will do what has to be done. Expect us within the hour.” The old priest broke the connection, and Tragius hurried off to tell the others.

☆☆☆

     The other priests began to arrive a few minutes later. One of the gatekeepers sent a message to the Abbot Captain telling him that Captain Renda, the most senior priest south of the Red Mountains, had materialised in the road just outside the main gates and was requesting admittance. The Abbot Captain, Captain Mase, granted his permission, and then ordered that the gates be left open so that later arrivals could walk right in.

     General Kharsh was next, a seventy nine year old invalid who had to be wheeled in by a pair of attendants but whose aura of power and authority warned all those around him that he was still a force to be reckoned with. He was followed by Colonel Dorth, a giant of a man in perfect physical health except for his missing right arm, the loss of which, two years before, had prompted him to accept promotion.

     One by one the priests arrived. Each one a living legend in his own homeland, as renowned and feared as Resalintas was in Belthar and its provinces. It was a gathering unheard of in living memory. An assemblage of the best and finest from all across the continent. Most of them were weary from the exertions of the war, and a few still had open wounds, having exhausted themselves healing the injuries of others. They were soon healed by other priests, though, so that by the time Resalintas himself arrived they were all in as perfect health as their age and weariness allowed.

     At their first sight of him, all conversation ceased and the assembled priests turned to face him. “What’s this about, Darian?” demanded Renda, his flush of anger visible even through his dark brown skin. “There’d better be a damned good reason for this. This is a bad time for me to be away from the battlefront.”

     “There is, indeed, a good reason,” replied Resalintas, his steel grey eyes scanning the hard, angry faces around him. “And since we haven’t much time, I won’t waste any of it beating around the bush. A way exists by which the enemy may be defeated, but to do so requires a certain sacrifice from us.”

     “What kind of sacrifice?” demanded Kharsh, his one remaining eye glaring out from under the strap of his eyepatch, and Tragius leaned forward, eager to see how the meeting would go. Some of the priests had stared suspiciously at the wizards as they’d entered, wondering what their connection was with the greatest assembly of priests in living memory, and the wizards had taken seats off to one side, thinking it wise to keep out of the way. Tragius had the feeling that that caution would prove justified very soon now.

     With one last look around at the assembled priests, Resalintas began speaking. The other priests had already been briefed on the information Malefactos had brought back from Arnor; the fact that the Shadow was generated by a beast from the depths of the Pit and that the Shadowlord’s power was entering Tharia via a rift in the interplanar medium; the Puncturium. The fact that these things had been learned by a rak was new to them, though.

     The old priest invited Tragius to take the floor and explain his part in Malefactos’s spying mission, and the wizard was unnerved to see the other priests tensing up in gathering rage as he spoke. He had a great many magical wards and charms on his person, enough to enable him to emerge unscathed from a sholog warren or a dragon’s lair, but he knew how little good that would do him here if the priests found his news too much to take. He spoke quickly, therefore, anxious to get it over with as fast as possible, and then hurried back to his seat, grateful to have escaped with his life as Resalintas replaced him to continue the story.

     “And now to the point,” he said, ignoring the angry colours of the faces around him. “As some of you know, shortly before the war started I led an expedition into the outer fringes of the Shadow, to ascertain the enemy’s intentions, and during the course of that expedition I had to fight a Shadowwizard. He was powerful, almost my equal, and I was forced to use a Holy Word to defeat him. In addition to the desired effect, however, the Holy Word had an interesting side effect. The holy power of Samnos, released by the Word, pushed aside the Shadow for a moment, allowing sunlight to shine through into that dark, evil land.”

     “I believe I see what you're aiming at,” said Dorth. “A denizen of the Pit would be destroyed by sunlight. You propose to go to Arnor, speak a Holy Word there and let in the sunlight to destroy the Shadowbeast.”

     “A single Holy Word wouldn't be enough, as the Shadow is so much denser at the centre,” said Resalintas. “It would require many Holy Words spoken by many priests of Samnos in unison, and even that may not be enough. Nevertheless, it is the only hope we have and we must take it. Once the Shadow has been dispelled, a team of living wizards will be able to enter Arnor and dismantle the Puncturium, cutting off the Shadowlord’s power. The legions of the undead will collapse, and his control over the living Shadowsoldiers will be broken. Freed from his rigid discipline they will break apart into warring tribes and species and the main threat to civilisation will be ended.”

     “Living wizards?” said Renda in puzzlement. “As opposed to...” He got it then, as did all the other priests virtually simultaneously, and a cry of outrage erupted in the room. The wizards glanced around nervously, looking for the quickest way out. “You’re suggesting that we deliberately end our lives and become undead?” demanded the black priest, his white eyes staring in disbelief.

     “Believe me, I would not suggest it if there were any other way,” replied Resalintas calmly. “The living may not enter Arnor, so we must cease to be living before we attempt it.”

     “This is outrageous!” exclaimed Mase, almost purple with fury. Then his colour deepened even further and his eyes widened as a new thought struck him. “Is that what they’ve been doing?” he demanded, pointing an accusing finger at the wizards. “Have they been doing research into rak transformation in my monastery?”

     “Priests alone will not be enough,” confirmed Resalintas. “We will have to fight our way through all the denizens of the city of Arnor. Only University raks will have the power to do that, and our friends here have volunteered to sacrifice their lives for this cause.”

Tragius nodded at the old priest's choice of words. Sacrifice. If he could make them see it as a sacrifice rather than a sin...

     An even greater commotion ensued, and the wizards began to have real fears about the outcome of the conference. Elmias leaned over and whispered in Tragius’s ear. “Looks like we might have the same trouble here as we had in the University.” The other wizard shuddered at the thought.

     “Actually, it might work,” said a new voice, and all heads turned to look at the withered, shrunken form of General Kharsh. “It’s bold, it’s audacious and it carries a very real chance of success.”

     “You don’t mean you’re condoning this madness?” demanded Dorth, waving his single hand in astonishment.

     “I think it’s worth considering,” replied Kharsh, his diamond bright eyes looking up at the black haired giant. “As priests of Samnos, we are allowed to use any weapon at our disposal in our fight against the forces of evil. Any weapon at all.”

     “But as raks we would be turning ourselves into evil creatures! We would be increasing the evil in the world, not fighting it!”

     “Not necessarily,” replied Resalintas. “There is precedent for this action. One priest before us has successfully transformed himself into a rak and used his new condition to defeat his enemies.”

     “You are referring to the legend of Skava,” said Colonel Dornt, a relatively young priest who should have been at the height of his fighting prowess except that his body was withered by disease. A curse that had been inflicted upon him by an evil wizard and that resisted all the healing power of the clerics of Caroli. “You know, then, how the story ends?”

     “There are two alternative endings,” said Resalintas. “The one I’m pinning my hopes on is that Samnos permitted him to make the transformation on the condition that he end his undead existence and go to judgement the moment his enemies were defeated. I propose that we make the same pledge. Skava left behind a bundle of scrolls in which he explained how a priest of Samnos can turn himself into a rak, and these scrolls have recently come into my possession. I have read them, and it turns out to be a fairly simple procedure. We should have no difficulty in emulating his deed.”

     “But once we become raks, we may begin to turn evil straight away and refuse to end our existence,” added Dornt, thumping an imaginary table to emphasise his point.

     “I propose that we meditate upon it and pray to Samnos for an answer,” said Kharsh, gesturing to his attendants to push him forward. “He will tell us whether this idea is a virtuous one.”

     The other priests agreed immediately. On Tharia, arguments between priests of the same faith rarely lasted long. All they usually had to do was consult their deity and He or She would tell them which point of view was the correct one, from the divine viewpoint. All the priests would then rally together, their differences forgotten, and work together, those who had formerly held the opposite viewpoint abandoning it without regret. Samnos had been silent for a long time, it was true, leaving His priests to make the best decisions they could on their own, but that was exceptional. Samnos had judged His priests to have become too dependent on him and wanted them to become more self reliant. Surely he would speak on a matter as important as this, though. The priests of Samnos all went down on one knee, therefore, all except Kharsh who was confined to his wheelchair, and they bowed their heads while the wizards filed quietly out of the room.

     The wizards waited impatiently in the corridor outside the room, some of them pacing up and down, hands clasped behind their backs, others just standing there, heads lowered and eyes unfocused as they pondered the outcome of the priests’ convocation. If Samnos forbade them from undertaking the transformation then the priests, including Resalintas, would kill them. Even if they managed to teleport away in time, they would still be outcasts from the University and would be on the run for the rest of their lives while they helplessly watched the Shadowhordes advancing further and further across the world. It wouldn’t be long, Tragius knew, before those who could began abandoning Tharia, fleeing to other worlds and planes of existence. That wasn’t a bad thing, of course. If some people could escape the rape of Tharia then that could only be a good thing and Tragius knew that he would be one of the first to go, but no matter how long he lived he knew that he’d never be able to stop thinking of all the millions who hadn’t been able to escape...

     Then the door opened again and Resalintas invited them back inside. “Samnos has broken His long silence,” he said, his eyes dark and grave. “He has spoken at last. He has given His approval for us to proceed with the plan.”

     “Tragius gave a long sigh of relief. “Thank the Gods!” he said, finding a chair and collapsing into it. “Thank Samnos! We’ve still got a hope!”

     “He made the condition I expected, however,” continued the old priest. “That we all end our undead existence the moment our mission is complete. That includes you as well as us. Failure to go voluntarily to judgement when the time comes will result in His immediate wrath and retribution.”

     “No problem.” agreed the wizard. “Unlike some people, immortality has no attraction for me. I’m ready for the next life.”

     The wizards and priests then left to make the few preparations that still had to be made, grim and silent at the thought of what they were about to do.